OK, just one more thing about PATD: You should also listen to the song below. It's the "harpsichordy" one I mentioned the other day. The harmonies are very pretty, and the whole thing just has a sweet feel to it. The embedded video below is just a still with music, so don't worry about not being able to see anything.


Next item of business: Can anyone recommend a good dinner cookbook? I dislike traditional cookbooks, because I don't like dishes divided into categories. Part of the reason I'm fond of Rachael Ray's recipes (and, no, I've never seen her cooking shows -- no cable -- so I don't really have a sense of why she's considered so god-awfully annoying) is that she just does whole meals -- not an appetizer here, a dessert there, a veggie there, etc. I'm just too lazy to put 3 recipes together and turn it into a meal, so I'd prefer that someone else do it for me.

So, anyway, I'm looking for other good cookbooks that focus on putting meals together rather than recipes divided into 1 of 18 categories. Holler if you can recommend one.

Friday after work I went to the gym. I felt good and I just kept running, and running, and running. I stopped at 3.24 miles. The most I had previously done in one stretch was 2.5. I was so irritated, though, because I interrupted the run twice by clumsily pulling the E-stop by accident. TWICE! First there is confusion (why did my machine just wind to a grinding halt?), which is followed by starting everything up again, trying to regain my rhythm and trying to remember what time/distance I was at when everything went black. I was annoyed that it happened twice, but pleased at having (eventually) completed the distance for a 5k.

Saturday I was feeling bloated and ornery, so we ditched some hiking plans we'd made. I made corn chowdah for lunch, and it fit well in its role of Saturday comfort food. Played computer games and messed around with photos the rest of the day, then we did a beef and broccoli stir-fry in the evening.

Today was a day of productivity! First to Costco to stock up on 100-calorie snacks and other lunchbox fillers, then to IKEA for breakfast and to window shop some patio furniture. We agreed on what we would like and might come back to pick it up next weekend -- can't wait to SIT on my new patio! Then we drove way up to Monticello to Lake Maria State Park. Hiked the Hiking Club trail and found a geocache. Got home just in time to change for yoga at 4:30. Yoga kicked my ass, hope I can get out of bed tomorrow.

Busy day of cooking and exercise!

1. Pop some middle-eastern lamb soup into the slow cooker to cook for 8 hours.

2. Walk 2 miles across Lake Minnetonka to find a geocache on Big Island. Beautiful sunny day to be out on the ice.

3. Whip up some (different) soup for lunch, this time Italian. Recipe was definitely a keeper.

4. 1-hour fitness yoga class. Wow! Hard work, and a little chaotic trying to instantly learn what everyone in else in class already seems to know, but fun. And, Jonas came too and enjoyed it! We might make it a Sunday afternoon habit.

5. Enjoy* lamb soup and watch Oscars.

*So...lamb. I've always felt somewhat of an aversion to eating lamb and veal. I know that it doesn't logically make sense -- young or old, an animal must die when I choose to eat meat. The young ones have appealed more to my conscience, though, and I've mostly avoided it (except for kebab in Sweden, which I'm pretty sure is lamb, but somehow it's easier when it's in such an unrecognizable state). Jonas wanted to make this soup today, and I was mentally prepared to eat it. It's unfortunate, then, that the first spoonful I brought to my lips contained a piece of meat with a large, visible vein, something which generally ruins my appetite for the duration of the meal. I was able to finish my bowl, and the soup was good, but I think I need to distance myself from lamb again.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

I'm in the middle of World Without End, and it's got me completely captivated. So what do I do? LEAVE IT AT WORK! Aaaaaaaargh! I'm terribly disappointed in myself. Worse, I keep thinking about it and looking forward to reading in bed later on, only to remember that it isn't here. *shakes fist*

In unrelated news, Jonas' car is busted. He's fairly certain he knows what the problem is and is actually going to attempt to fix it himself, but it's been too cold recently to perform auto repair. We've been more or less carpooling for the last week, which has not exactly been convenient now that he doesn't work in EP anymore.

Soooooo. I made beef pasta and mushroom soup tonight because I saw it on the Betty Crocker recipe of the day, which has been one of my RSS feeds for some time but up until today I'd never been sufficiently enticed into trying one. It was beefy goodness.

Jonas and I made the most delicious homemade enchiladas tonight. Words cannot express just how heavenly they were. Just to make you envious, I present here a photo of our masterpiece:



I limited myself to two, despite feeling like I could eat about five of them.

Earlier today I had made portobello mushroom sandwiches for lunch that also turned out high above expectations. It was a good weekend. Several interesting meals prepared, and some interesting movies watched: Syriana, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, and Hidden.

Oh, and it's snowing!

The Swedish phrase of the day is Mexikansk mat. It means Mexican food.

Christmas at our place was a fantastic success!! We were so pleased.

In the morning we intended to really sleep in, but I still was up by about 9:00. After puttering at the computer for a good hour or so I went down to the kitchen to make the cranberries. The recipe is so easy and because they are chilled in the fridge before serving, they can be made in advance. Then I peeled and cut up some potatoes and threw them in cold water so they would be ready when the time came as well.

Dad, Kris and Ron arrived at 2:00pm and we played Tripoli for a few hours, snacking on nuts, cookies, cheese and crackers, and oysters. The ham was already cooked, but let it heat up for an hour and a half in the oven while we played. It was a double-smoked ham that we bought from our local butcher (yes, patronizing the local businesses!). Eventually, we sat down to eat at a table of ham, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, peas, rolls, cranberries, and blueberry pie for dessert. I was thrilled that everything turned out perfect.

We exchanged gifts after dinner, and Dad gave us the new (huge) George Foreman grill, which also came with a separate rotisserie component. He gave us the gift receipt, in case we wanted to take it back or exchange it, but Jonas was checking reviews online and I think we may keep it. My concerns are how often we'd use it, and where we would store it when we weren't using it. Kris and I decided not to exchange gifts this year, but we gave each other small token gifts so Dad wouldn't really notice and wonder why. Jonas won $6 on his scratch-off lottery ticket!

Now in three days, on Sunday the 28th, we're hosting another Christmas dinner -- this time, a Swedish spread for Mom and Dean, and Anita and Dean. Jonas is going to stop at Ingebretsens to get the good stuff. I hope that dinner goes just as well!

I started a subscription to the census records at Genealogy.com for $19.99 per month. Overall, I am not altogether impressed with this site -- their search engine in particular is disappointingly weak -- however, they have the 1900 and 1910 censuses indexed and just for that I am willing to subscribe for a little while to get the information I need. So after everyone had gone home I spent a few hours totally engrossed in new census information.

Although Dad had Thanksgiving this year, I decided to buy a turkey too and cook it up for just me and Jonas. I'd only done a turkey once before, so I could certainly use the practice. I bought the turkey Wednesday night and decided to cook it on Sunday since I was pretty sure it wouldn't last through the week.

Sunday morning I got up and gave Jonas a shopping list for Rainbow. He was more than happy to run some errands for me in his new car. (Funny how that works, isn't it?) In the meantime I made the scalloped corn, since it was something I could reheat easily later on. This is THE BEST scalloped corn recipe ever!! I found it at Allrecipes and took it to Dad's and it was a hit, and it was so easy to make I think I will file it under "Easy Things to Make for a Potluck." After the corn went into the oven Jonas arrived with the rest of my ingredients and I made the cranberry sauce -- another easy recipe that took all of 10 minutes!!

Since I had already completed two of my dishes for our belated Thanksgiving dinner to be held later in the evening, we went out for a spin to do some shopping. I had a gift certificate for Borders from last year's birthday so we went down to Lyndale and picked out some books about pregnancy. I couldn't think of any other book I preferred to buy before the gift certificate would expire, and I guess now we'll be prepared whenever the time comes. :) Now I've got to hide the books so nobody spots them lying around by accident -- just what I need is for visiting parents to start getting ideas!

Later on after we got home I threw the turkey in the oven and started the rest of the meal. In addition to the turkey, corn and cranberry sauce, I made stuffing (in a pan), gravy and garlic mashed potatoes. With the exception of part of the turkey which might have gotten slightly overdone, everything turned out great! I had to laugh when Jonas noted afterward that I'd cooked the turkey upside down without even noticing. Despite the inverted turkey, I feel more confident in preparing an extensive turkey dinner, so I think we'll host next year.

This year we are planning to host two Christmases, and I think we are going to do a Swedish julbord. I'm sure some of the dishes will cause some noses to wrinkle among my family, but I think it will be fun and I know that Jonas misses the traditional Swedish Christmas spread.

I got to sleep in until about 9:00am, when Dean called for Jonas (who was at work). Then I thought I might as well get up anyway, so I went to the computer for a while and scanned some pictures in preparation for heading to Archivers a little later on.

About 11:30 I got myself dressed and presentable and headed up to the EP mall to meet Jonas for a Subway lunch. When I go to Subway I never get anything but a turkey breast sub, but for some reason today I was actually looking at the menu and wondering if I should try something new. Ever stuck in my rut, I decided to order the turkey anyway. Wouldn't you know they gave me a chicken breast sub instead of the turkey? I considered for a few seconds pointing it out, but in the end decided I was obviously destined to try something new. And it was good.

Jonas went back to work and I lugged my heavy bag of scrapbooking down to Archivers and worked in their workroom for a few hours. On my way out of the mall I decided it was time for a haircut and stopped at the salon/spa for a trim. While chatting with the stylist I mentioned that I've always wished my hair were straighter -- it is pretty straight already, but there is just enough wave in weird places to make it kind of annoying. So when she was done cutting and blow-drying she used a straightening iron on it. It was just the tiniest change, but it felt like a whole new "do," so that was fun. Jonas' initial reaction as he walked in the door, "You look like a boy," was kind of amusing. Yes, when I think of boys, I think of straight blond hair down to one's shoulders. Bizarre. He later said it looked good and that the first comment was just the first thing that popped out of his mouth. I'll forgive him.

I heated up some chow mein for dinner and cooked up some brown rice. Then we headed out to try our new bowling balls for the first time! Our first stop, Country Club Lanes in Excelsior, was already booked. Then we stopped at EP and they were also booked. Finally, we tried Louisville Lanes in Shakopee and they were also full, but we decided to hang around and put ourselves on the waiting list -- we really wanted to bowl with our new stuff, dammit! Jonas played some pinball while we waited. When our turn finally came we played three games -- Jonas won the first two and I won the third, tying my personal best of 139 with four strikes in the game. Woohoo! I don't think I've ever been in a smokier establishment -- we really stunk when we got home.

Yay, the Chaska school referendum passed! Despite the fact that I found out what the details of the referendum even were only yesterday, I'm excited about this. It indicates that we have moved into a community that clearly places schools as a top priority, as it's going to raise our annual property taxes by about $300. The upside is that if the area is recognized as having top-notch schools, our overall property value will increase as well.

There were also elections for school board, and the three guys I voted for won in the new-elect category, but the one I voted for in the re-elect category did not. I didn't even really know who was running until about 7pm last night when Jonas and I sat down with the local paper in an attempt to determine what each candidate was about.

I have to say that my banana bread was a success, despite being a low-fat version. My biggest fear was that it wouldn't be done in the middle, a problem that has plagued me every time I try to bake bread. It seemed to be OK, and it tasted good, although not quite as sweet as "real" banana bread. I should really practice baking more often. As it is now, each time I try a recipe I go into it thinking that it's not going to turn out, and then am surprised when it occasionally does.

Dad's birthday is coming up, and I have no clue what to get him. He's going to be 64 this year, which is hard to believe, and he never seems to need anything. He lives a self-imposed, fairly frugal life, so we try not to buy him things that are too over-the-top because we know he'll never use them.

The snow is almost all gone, sad. I knew it wouldn't last, but I was kind of hoping, you know? I'm actually looking forward to shoveling my own driveway this winter! The novelty is bound to wear off after the first big snowfall, but at this point it still sounds like an exciting thing to do.

Boy, I'm hungry! I just had a banana and some yogurt for lunch. I tried something new for breakfast: a bowl of Cheerios mixed with plain vanilla yogurt instead of milk poured on. It was pretty good! I might do that more often. I don't know what we're going to do for dinner tonight, but I plan to make some lowfat banana bread with the mushy bananas sitting on the counter later on. I've never tried the recipe before -- I actually found it in the depths of cdc.gov. Jonas laughed: "We're going to eat disease control banana bread?" I guess so. :)

Our bowling balls are supposed to be ready today, so we'll probably stop in there on the way home. I'd like to try them out right away, but probably not at the EP lanes (they're so goddamn expensive!). Maybe we'll try out Country Club in Excelsior instead. Mom and Grandma used to bowl on a league there back in the day, and Kris and I often came along and played arcade games. The coolest game was Crystal Castles with the trackball! I also liked Marble Madness, but those creepy worms pouncing on and devouring the marble kind of freaked me out at the tender age of 8 or so. It'd be fun to join a league, but we're not good enough to really think about it yet. Perhaps another six or so months of practice and then see what happens.

I need to call Dad and Kris and determine what's going on for Thanksgiving. I think we should probably host it (maybe I already discussed this?), but I've just been terrible at connecting with family since we moved. I haven't talked to Kris in over a month. I'm such an uncaring sister!! I know she's been busy with her new job as well.

We are thinking of buying a new (used) car next month, a Buick Century (*drool*). That has been my dream car for several years now. Jonas' windshield has a huge (and dangerous, I might add) crack in it, and since his car is the oldest and clunkiest (it's an '89) we might as well junk it and get something new(er) and fresh(er). He has actually had his eye on a Regal for some time, but at this point we're still figuring out what our new budget looks like since we bought the house, and the Century's price tag is bound to be a little bit more agreeable. With luck, he'll still get his Regal in 2 or 3 years.

Update: Picked up our bowling balls, shoes and bags, but decided not to bowl tonight. Grabbed some Subway to go then headed home to eat and study up on the local school board election. A half hour before the polls closed we headed out again to vote. Well, I voted; Jonas is of course not eligible. I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one there who'd come to vote in my jammies. :)

Now time for some banana bread!

This will probably be a quickie.

Feeling pretty good about getting organized and taking charge of our finances. The Money program is excellent. I'm able to keep track of where almost every penny goes -- the one exception is the "cash in hand" account, which is always a bit off when Jonas drops a few bucks on little things here and there and forgets to tell me how much. When each month is over it's nice to look back and see what we spent in each category, although the last few months were severely distorted from having paid $8,000 towards our down payment. Given all the house expenses coming up this year we probably won't get a real accurate picture of our normal budget until early next year.

I had to work today. It was my own damn fault -- I had to sign up for 3 Saturdays during the summer, and without consulting a calendar I chose randomly, not realizing this was Memorial Day weekend. Not that it's a big deal, we weren't going anywhere, but I could have had 3 days off in a row. Boo hoo. Oh, one interesting thing did happen at work: the police came and served one of our patrons with a "no trespassing" warrant for 30 days. He's a 13ish-year-old kid who has continuously been taking items that are on reserve for other people, and is the prime suspect in the theft of numerous anime DVDs and videotapes over the last few months. Getting started young, they are ...

Made a light pasta salad for dinner: cherry tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella and whole-wheat rotini pasta. It was pretty good for being Good For You. Those cherry tomatoes are so yummy!!

So we bought a puzzle a few weeks ago and have been working on it a few hours during the weekends. Yep, we're well on our way to becoming Old People Who Do Puzzles. We've got about 1/3 to go now. It's a picture of some castle in Germany, apparently relatively recently built by a guy who wanted to live in his own castle. Wow, 3 adverbs in a row up there! *flex*

Jonas just went out to Barnes & Noble to buy a CD of classical music. It's called something like "The Best Classical Music Album Ever." Apparently it got some good reviews. We've been playing soft, relaxing music while working the puzzle, now with another CD there'll be a little more variety.

Tomorrow morning I have a workshop downtown at the government center. Because I don't drive downtown, I'm doing the public transportation thing. So tonight I phoned Metro Transit and told them when and where I needed to be, and they nicely gave me details on which bus to take. Of course, I could always read a bus schedule myself and come to the same conclusions, but I've had some bad experiences with buses not coming when I expect them to. Since I have to go back to work afterward and don't want to miss my bus back to Eden Prairie, I've made sure to get a second opinion! After I get back about 1:30 I will only have to work until 4. Nice day!

Tonight on the way home I stopped at Cub to pick up some hamburger and chili sauce. Added some onions and whipped up a big batch of sloppy joes that we can eat now and then over the next few days. I should do that more often -- make a big pot of something that will last for more than one meal.

So far the budget thing is going well. We're not actually at a stage where we've created a budget for anything, but we're so far doing a pretty good job of keeping track of what we spend. A few more months of this and we should get a pretty good idea of where all the $$ goes!

Jonas is teaching tonight, then afterwards he and his boss have to go back to Woodbury to finish up something they were working on this afternoon. So O woe is me, all alone again, such is the life of the wife of a network administrator on call. He's supposed to give me a call after class and let me know if I should throw together some joes for him to eat in between jobs.

Boy, we had a productive day (even though we slept in)!

It didn't start out as such a great day. The kids upstairs were doing their usual screaming and stomping bit. I did get to sleep in, but I sure would have liked to sleep in a bit longer. But alas, you cannot fight the herd of rampaging rhinos living above. All I could think about was how much I wish I had my own house, so I didn't have to listen to that crap every day.

So one of the first things I did for fun after I got up was search realtor.com for house listings. I found one that looked neat and was in our tentative price range: 4 bdr, 2 bath, 1950 sqft, built 1988. I printed out the info and after Jonas and I got ready to go out and run errands we decided to do a drive-by there first. (No, not that kind of drive-by.) Well, it looked OK, although it was painted weirdly. The neighborhood seemed, again, just "OK." It looked like it may have been a great neighborhood 5 years ago and now is maybe starting to go downhill. No big deal, we're just window-shopping right now anyhow.

Then we ran to the Mall of America to the T-Mobile store. Jonas had already decided to buy us a couple of phones, but we listened to the salesguy's spiel anyway. I get bored with salesguys, but Jonas is tolerant that way. I got the cute phone I had been looking at yesterday, and Jonas got his fancy-schmancy, bells-and-whistles version so we were both happy. Of course, we then spent several hours playing with them, calling each other, leaving each other voicemail and leaving each other text messages. Just like kids at Christmas! Oh, we also made a relatively quick stop at Southdale so Jonas could pick up some new shirts for work.

After we got home I thought we'd spend the rest of the evening just lazing around, but at some point (and I don't remember who came up with this brazen initiative), we decided to actually cook something for dinner. Yes, I know it's hard to believe we actually created a meal in our own home. Nothing fancy, just some Shake-and-Bake chicken, peas, and rice, but pretty good for us who usually eat out or make instant-type meals in evenings. *clap us*

I just now finished composing a really long and detailed email to a newfound relation on my Freiermuth side who lives in California. (I'm into genealogy.) He ends up being my third cousin. Now it's truly time to relax.

Jonas made us a dinner of mashed potatoes tonight, a recipe he got out of a Williams-Sonoma Mayo Clinic cookbook. It was made with chopped arugula, a green, leafy vegetable similar to spinach. It had a stronger taste than spinach does, though. I spread my potatoes on a pita bread and Jonas spread his on a crisp bread. It was a funny supper with just potatoes and bread but we both got full. After dinner we finished watching a documentary about the Spanish-American war.

I have a new aunt.

Last night mom called with some odd news. It turns out that she and her siblings have an older half-sister (Anita), a daughter born to my grandmother when she was 15-16 and given up for adoption. After her adoptive parents died, she decided to seek out her biological family. More details to follow later as we find out more, but I have to say despite being a bit of a bombshell, I am finding it one of the most exciting things to happen in our family in ages!

Mom and her sisters hope to meet Anita soon, perhaps later this month. I'd like to meet her too, but we don't want to overwhelm her too with much new family all at once. It seems kind of unreal to discover a lost relation after 60 years!

Currently reading at home: The Great Book of Amber (Roger Zelazny)
Currently reading at work: Morality Play (Barry Unsworth)

Katie'd asked me if I could work a few hours since we were so backed up. It's my day off but I didn't really have anything else planned. Little did I know I probably should have just stayed home ...

Hehehehe. So I get to work and get out of my car, hitting the auto-lock on my way out. Only then do I realize that not only have I just left my keys in the car, but THE CAR IS STILL RUNNING! Panic! How utterly stupid of me. So I go into the building and I'm so embarrassed when everyone hears what happened, though a few of them said, "Haha! I did that too once!" The first time I have EVER done that!! UGH. Anyway, I called Jonas since he has a spare to my car on his ring, only he was in class (attending, not teaching) and couldn't be paged right then, so I left a message with a woman who said she'd deliver it. A few minutes later he called up and heard my silly story. This was about 11am and he had a lunch break coming up at 11:30 so it wasn't going to be TOO long before he could come to my rescue. I had a full tank of gas so I wasn't worried about it sitting there running. Finally, a little after 11:30, he arrived (my knight in shining armour!) and delivered my car keys to me after turning the car off. What a guy. :)

After I got home from work I felt like doing something nice. I got down our crock-pot thingie which we had never yet used, opened it up and read the instructions guide which also contained some recipes. I chose to make beef stew. So I went down to Jerry's Foods and bought all the ingredients I needed, as well as a sappy "thank you" card for Jonas. It was all ready when he got home, the stew and some dinner rolls I'd made, too. He said the stew was "perfect." *SWOON*

I'd installed Age of Empires: Age of Kings on my machine, so I played a little of that before bed.